


Fumbling out of the dark

by taizi



Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: Gen, natsume protection squad, nishimura is too good for this world, one of those 'natsume's friends find out about his secret ability' stories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-10 07:29:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10432347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taizi/pseuds/taizi
Summary: “Iknewyour ugly cat was weird,” Satoru says. “Itcantalk, can’t it? I’ve heard it a couple of times, haven’t I?”





	

“Nishimura, come on,” Kitamoto says. “Don’t freak out.”

“I’m not freaking out – who’s freaking out?” Satoru replies, very clearly freaking out. 

They’re camping, an overnight fishing trip at a really nice spot by the river that Natsume knew about, and everything was _fine_ until Kitamoto slipped on a wet stone and hit the water with a mighty splash. They fished him out and had a good laugh about the scare, until he tried to put weight on his hands and push himself upright, and one very injured wrist came to light. 

Satoru can deal with a lot of things, he thinks, but a hurt friend is not a thing that makes that list. There’s already a traitorous heat prickling at the corners of his eyes, and Kitamoto shoots him a long-suffering look. 

“Stop it. It’s just a flesh wound.”

“That’s not even – that’s the opposite of a flesh wound?“

“He’s right,” Tanuma announces, sitting back from his careful examination. He lowers Kitamoto’s arm carefully and pushes damp hair out of his face. It’s probably no good that he let himself get soaked – it’s already getting dark, and Tanuma gets sick as easily as _Natsume_ does. “This doesn’t look like a flesh wound at all, dude. I’m pretty sure it’s a fracture.”

“Oh my god,” Satoru whispers. “You have a broken wrist.”

“Thanks, Tanuma,” Kitamoto says dryly.

“We’re all packed up,” Natsume interjects at that point. Satoru’s not sure when he found time to break down their camp, and risks a glance at his quiet classmate. Natsume’s face is pale. He looks as not-freaked-out as Satoru feels. “We should probably start heading home, right?”

“It won’t be safe to go back down the mountain in the dark,” Kitamoto says, frowning. His voice is hoarse with hurt, and it’s as good as driving spikes into Satoru’s chest. “It’s a two-hour hike. We should just wait until morning.”

“No way, you need to see a doctor.” Satoru shakes his head, and keeps shaking it, absolutely not about to give on this point. For all his calm levelheadedness, there’s wincing pain in Kitamoto’s face, and he’s careful to keep his arm still because even Tanuma’s meticulous touch hurt a lot, and Satoru is not going to spend a whole night in the forest while Kitamoto is suffering right beside him. He’s just _not._ “If I have to carry you, I will. I swear. It’s not happening, we’re not staying here. We have flashlights, we’ll be fine.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” Kitamoto tells him sternly. But lifelong fondness softens the words before they have a chance to land too harshly, and at that point Satoru knows he’s won. Sure enough, a moment later, riding the back of a gusty sigh, “ _Fine_. Let’s stop wasting our light and get a move on, then.”

Natsume is shifting his weight from foot to foot anxiously, and out of his peripheral vision Satoru watches him trade a weighted look with Tanuma. 

“Um,” he says, at length. And maybe it’s the fading light, but his eyes look darker and rounder than usual. They dart down to the calico in his arms, and then up again at Kitamoto. “I might have a faster way home than walking. If you want.”

The clearing is quiet for a moment that seems to stretch endlessly, filled with the white noise of the rushing river behind them, and the chatter of nighttime bugs. And then Kitamoto breaks the impasse with a crooked smile. 

“What would you have us do instead?” he says, amiable and patient despite the lines of pain in his face. “Fly?”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Disappearing cats and disembodied voices are both things that Satoru was not prepared to deal with during their overnight camping trip; right alongside his best friend breaking his wrist, and the four of them gearing up for an admittedly treacherous hike back down the mountain in the dark.

But Natsume’s face is white with real fear, and his eyes are as dark as they were the day Satoru met him, even if his expression doesn’t really change much. His arms are curled around his middle the way they’d usually be curled around his cat, like a guard – as if those frail hands could shield him from _anything_ that really wanted to hurt him – and, remarkably, Satoru can put aside everything else that’s going on to frown at his friend.

Sure, there was a violent curl of wind and a screen of white smoke, and Nyan-nyan-sensei vanished into thin air. Kitamoto stumbled back a few steps in alarm, but Tanuma was there to keep him steady, which leaves Satoru free to jab a finger at Natsume and snap, “You look like you’re gonna pass out! Take a breath!”

Some of that awful, bleak dread in Natsume’s face recedes to make room for bewilderment instead. Satoru has that affect on people.

And sure he’s scared, somewhere, in the back of his mind. His hands are shaking a little, so he shoves them in his pockets as he takes a few fake-fearless steps forward, and makes sure to scowl at Natsume the same way he always does; when Natsume won’t share the answers he got for their homework, or some of the tasty-looking food Touko packs in his lunch. Like it’s everyday and normal, and Satoru’s not going to do – whatever it is Natsume is so afraid Satoru might do.

Satoru doesn’t like being on the other side of this wall Natsume puts up. He likes to think the two of them are close, these days, and he doesn’t want to get pushed farther away.

“I knew your ugly cat was weird,” Satoru leads with. “It _can_ talk, can’t it? I’ve heard it a couple of times, haven’t I?”

“Cheeky brat,” the voice of an old man grumbles from behind Natsume’s shoulder. Satoru jumps, and hears Kitamoto mutter a faint “what the hell,” but Natsume lifts a hand almost by reflex, reaching out as though he’s patting a large animal that isn’t there. And seeing him do that is a little disarming, like watching someone greet a faithful dog at the front door. “If you could see my true form, you would be awed by it.”

Really, maybe it isn’t as surprising as it should be. Natsume’s always been a little jumpy and a little odd, but once upon a time he was a quiet, brand new transfer student with reserved mannerisms and glass eyes, and Satoru yelled hurtful things at him in the library over an origami book. Satoru never apologized for that – never explained that it was something dark and hateful weighing on his heart, making him do and say things he didn’t mean –  but he had never needed to. Because Natsume seemed to understand without asking, and followed Satoru when that darkness on his heart steered him blindly into the woods, and knew how to save him, and carried him back home on thin shoulders, in thin arms.

Maybe Satoru has been willfully blind up until now, putting weird incidents out of his mind as they happened so Natsume’s smile would stop looking so strained. And maybe it was a kindness then, but it feels like a disservice now.

“Nyan-nyan-sensei?” he says carefully. “Um – sorry, I’ve never talked to a talking cat before – uh, so, how are you? And – _what_ are you? And – _where…”_ he adds, sweeping their clearing with shrewd eyes, “…are you?”

“He’s a yokai,” Tanuma steps in. His voice is so calm and steady that it soaks most of the tension out of the air like a sponge, and his eyes are focused on Natsume, clear and bright and supportive. “Natsume can see them. They give him a lot of trouble at times, so Ponta looks after him. Like a bodyguard.”

“That’s why he’s always following you around,” Kitamoto says carefully. The shock didn’t do him any favors – jumping back like that probably jarred his arm, if the way he’s wincing is any indication – but there’s nothing mean in his face when he looks at Natsume. Satoru has no clue why Natsume was afraid there ever could be. “I wondered how he always managed to tag along on our school trips.”

Natsume is looking back and forth between the three of them slowly, frozen somewhere between disbelief and confusion. He’s digging his fingers into fur that Satoru can’t see, clinging to his calico cat’s true form the way Kitamoto’s little sister used to cling to their mom’s smock when she was younger. A safety blanket, Satoru thinks, and moves stubbornly closer. Natsume doesn’t _need_ one of those right now, he’s not in any danger among his best friends.

“So you already told Tanuma about all this?” Satoru can’t help feeling a little hurt, but he’s mostly just trying to get that look off Natsume’s face when he adds, “That’s not fair, I knew you first!”

Tanuma smiles kindly at Satoru, seeing right through his efforts the way he _always_ does when Natsume is involved. “It’s not something he talks about easily, even to me. I can sense yokai, too, but only barely. That’s why I was so interested in meeting Natsume after I heard all those rumors about him. I had never met anyone else who was aware of yokai before.”

“Me, too,” Natsume offers at that point. His voice is very soft, but he presses bravely forward anyway. “I’ve always been the only one who can see them. And it’s dangerous, when other people get involved. So, I – I keep it a secret. I’m sorry. It’s not that I don’t trust you, I promise it’s not that. Sorry.”

Satoru stares at him. The single step between them feels about a mile wide, and yawning wider.

He always knew there had to be a reason someone like Natsume grew up so unwanted, passed from place to place, from family to family. There had to be a reason why people spoke so badly of him, why rumors floated after him at every new school he enrolled in. Rumors that called him _creepy,_ and _cursed,_ and a _liar._

Back when Natsume was little, Satoru thinks, it probably wasn’t as easy not to flinch when he saw a monster in the window. It probably wasn’t as easy not to cry when something scary followed him home.

And Satoru has seen him faint without warning in the hallway at school, and fall off a bridge into the deep of the river as if he was pushed, and run away into the dark of the forest by himself, and shout half of a heated argument into thin air. He comes to class with dark circles under tired eyes and a wan smile that doesn’t touch the rest of his face, only leases impersonal space with his mouth. 

It’s dangerous enough that he needs a bodyguard, Satoru realizes. It’s scary enough that Tanuma always looks pale when Natsume is late for school.

“Yeah,” Kitamoto says quietly. “I think I understand.” He’s watching Natsume carefully, but when Natsume glances at him, Kitamoto softens with a grin. “So can we pet him? You know Nishimura’s dying to.”

A gust of warm, musky air hits the side of Satoru’s face and ruffles Natsume’s hair – a huff of breath, followed by a disgruntled, “Do you mistake me for a household _pet?”_

“ _Sensei_ ,” Natsume scolds him, at the same time Tanuma says, “Mistake? Ponta, he carries you around every day like a _doll_.”

They do get to pet him. For all his mighty bluster, and the animated way he and Natsume bicker with each other, he subsides after a few minutes with a throaty grumble. Natsume guides Satoru’s hand to the thick of soft, downy fur, and it’s a little trippy – after all, he can’t _see_ anything there – but more than that, it’s _really cool._

“What does he look like?” Satoru asks, trying to find Nyan-nyan-sensei’s favorite spot to be scratched behind the ear. The invisible body beneath his hand shifts, startling him for a moment, until he realizes the cat-yokai is leaning into the touch. Like a dog, he thinks again, gleefully, and finally finds a big, soft ear to scratch behind. “What color is he? Is he really, really big? Can he really fly? Are we really going to _fly?”_

When he glances up, Kitamoto and Tanuma are both smiling at him – so warm and fond that it’s a little embarrassing, so Satoru quickly looks over at Natsume instead. At Natsume, whose amber eyes are light again, and trembling wetly with something that looks like downright staggering gratitude, and _jeez,_ he’s no better than the other two. 

If he thanks me I’ll hit him, Satoru decides mulishly, even as his face burns under the combined attention. Natsume doesn’t, though. He wipes a sleeve over his face, even though he hasn’t cried, and turns to offer Kitamoto his hand.

Looking a little taller, and a little older, and a little softer in the bright moonlight as he says, “Yeah. Let me show you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote these as two separate prompt fills, which is why there's such an odd transition in the middle :')


End file.
